Originally Posted by
lougord99
The decision to divert is made by the dispatcher and not the pilot?
Although under the FAA regs the captain is the final authority, etc. etc. the decision to divert is most commonly a joint one between captain and the flight's dispatcher, continuing the philosophy of joint pilot/dispatcher responsibility under other FAA regs.
Unlike the captain (who is busy flying), the dispatcher has access to wider variety of info, and more timely info than the captain might have. For example, consider a flight from Florida that's holding to get into MDW that has IND listed as an alternate. If a captain decides to divert to IND absent any communication and coordination with his dispatcher, s/he may get an unpleasant surprise upon landing there and discovering that there are already 6 other diversions ahead of him, and that they'll be #7. (We like to try and spread any diversions out amongst other nearby stations, which in the scenario could include SDF, CMH, DTW, CLE, STL, BNA, etc.) Should a captain disagree with one of these other places and insist on IND, s/he can certainly still go there, but it's not going to be as smooth an operation delay-wise as it might have been by going elsewhere.
The bottomline is communication and coordination between the two parties can (and usually does) prevent many problems.